


Little Moments of Understanding

by wasureneba



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-29
Updated: 2013-08-29
Packaged: 2017-12-24 23:38:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/946033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wasureneba/pseuds/wasureneba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The moment that Lily realizes she doesn't hate James is the moment he begins to try to understand what it means for there to be a world outside of the Wizarding one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Moments of Understanding

**Author's Note:**

> This was an exchange gift over a [HH Sugarquill](http://hh-sugarquill.livejournal.com) for Klef. The prompt was "when Lily realized that she didn't hate James". This got a bit into privilege and stereotyping, so I hope it's not too heavy! I've always thought that wizarding views of Muggles would be very important to Lily, and that it would be difficult for her to date someone who didn't try to really understand the Muggle world.

Lily had never hated James Potter. `Hate' was far too strong a word for it, although her feelings were certainly not of the kinder type. He wasn't a horrible person; just sort of a prat. He was arrogant, and he was privileged, and he didn't know that he was either of those things. There was the whole Quidditch thing, of course, the way he (and the others) sometimes strode about as if being on the Quidditch team made you a king of Gryffindor Tower---but that, Lily could forgive as the spoils of talent. Pride in hard work, she thought, that was a good thing, even if over-applied in this case.

No, what cemented a building antipathy into dislike was approximately one half of the times she heard the word `Muggle' escape his lips. She had to admit, he wasn't so bad on this; he seemed generally supportive of Muggle-borns and Muggle rights, and he certainly wasn't like the group that Sev hung out with. She couldn't really identify any particular incidents that bothered her. Somehow, though, he just seemed so damn _patronizing_. There was something about the way he talked about visits to Muggle London that made her hackles stand up. It was mostly well-intentioned curiosity, she knew. The problem was just that the curiosity came out wrong, came out as seeing the Muggle world as a place for wizarding tourists to play, and to shake their heads pityingly at the strange, silly Muggles living without magic. 

The Muggle world, Lily thought, was not a playground for the only trickster sons of well-off, doting wizarding parents to visit. It was a place for living in. So when Potter started flirting with her in fifth year, she shut him down. She thought that maybe she was being hyper-sensitive about it, but she got the feeling that he didn't understand what being a Muggle-born meant to Muggle-borns, and she couldn't imagine dating someone who didn't understand something that fundamental to her existence. Even if he was sort of cute, and a good Quidditch player, and pretty good at Transfiguration to boot.

All through fifth year, she rebuffed him; sixth year started no differently. That year was a heady one, right from the start. NEWT classes were smaller, faster, and far more intense than OWL classes. Lily had been considering pursuing Healing after Hogwarts, and so had a full docket of classes. After the first month, she felt a little bit like she was drowning. 

She had started to partner with Remus in most of her classes. He used to partner with Pettigrew, and she would partner with Sev or with Mary McDonald---but now Pettigrew and Mary weren't taking much in the way of NEWTs, and Sev, well, that was out of the question. Remus had always been a kind and caring person. She felt a sort of kindred spirit with him, as if they were both fighting to show that they were more than their backgrounds. Besides, you spent so much time patrolling with your fellow prefects that you kind of had to become friends with them.

She was especially glad that she shared a table with Remus in Potions, when she had to studiously avoid even glancing at Sev, and to ignore the constant spatting between him, Potter, and Black. She and Remus plodded on, chopping, dicing, slicing and stirring, with only occasional mishaps. The most spectacular mishap of sixth year happened one cold day shortly before the Christmas holidays. One of the Hufflepuffs in the class had accidentally exploded the cauldron of Hiccoughing Solution he was working on. They spent the last five minutes of class cleaning up, Lily carefully extracting and vanishing the solution from her bag, and Remus trying to figure out how it was that his _quill_ had started hiccoughing. Over at the table that Potter and Black shared, she could hear laughter. She instinctively pricked her ears, years of running interference between Sev and the Gryffindor boys coming into play.

"I swear, Pads, it was---oh, it was just so funny. Seriously. They've got some of the weirdest toys. They've got these little ones, they look like jaws, got teeth and everything, and you turn a little peg in the side and all of a sudden the things start chomping around. It's like they're trying to approximate an animation charm. You see grown adults playing with the things!"

Lily tried to draw her attention away from the conversation, but as always happened when someone started talking about Muggle culture, she felt compelled to keep listening.

"Do the things actually bite you if they get at you?"

"Nah, the jaws just keep closing up and down, they don't latch on. Wonder what would happen if you went into one of the stores and actually charmed the the thing? I imagine the Muggles would be pretty confused if the little jaws got all bulldoggish."

Lily felt her face pass into a frown, and saw one move over Remus's face as well. She didn't know if it was because he knew she must have heard, or if he too was not pleased with the words that had just come out of his friend's mouth. There it was, though, a downwards twitch of his thin lips.

"James," Remus said, beckoning Potter and Black over. They walked towards Remus and Lily's table. Lily crouched down to shift some of the things in her bag, hiding her face behind her hair. She was happy not to look at Potter right now.

"Yeah, Moony?"

"Please don't take this the wrong way---I don't mean it personally---but you might not want to talk that way."

"Huh? About what?" Potter sounded confused. Lily lifted her bag to the table and kept packing it, glancing at the boys. Potter certainly looked confused.

"Muggles. I mean, they're people, James."

The confused look stayed on Potter's face. "Of course they're people. What else would they be, centaurs?"

"It just---it made them sound quaint, and that's not particularly respectful, is it? And the jaws thing, if someone didn't know you they'd think you supported Muggle-baiting."

"I---the hell, Remus?!" The confusion, now, was replaced by shock and not a small touch of anger.

"I know you didn't mean it to sound that way. It's just, you know, I mean, you wouldn't want someone talking about you that way. You wouldn't want to hear Muggles contemplating playing tricks on you that would really scare you. I mean, imagine if you didn't know magic existed, and then some toy came to life and started attacking you."

"I---" Potter stopped. Lily never knew if it was because she was there, but he stopped. "Yeah. Sorry, mate. Thanks."

Remus shrugged. Lily had stopped glancing now, and was watching the entire proceedings with interest. Remus, she thought, must have done a lot of thinking on this. She should talk to him later about it. And Potter---Potter had accepted criticism without complaint, which astounded her.

Remus picked up his bag and hiccoughing quill, and started to move towards the door. Lily slung her bag over her shoulder, catching up. Remus glanced at her, and she gave him a smile; he smiled back. They started to file out, Potter and Black close behind. As they walked out of the classroom, Potter caught up to them.

"Hard to get your world views challenged a bit, isn't it, Potter?" she asked him quietly.

"Er---" he replied. He looked over at her, and although he'd been looking at her, and quite a bit, over the past year, something in his face let her know that he was finally seeing her. His face went bright pink, and she could see the gears turning in his head as he realized exactly why she, of all people, would not have been impressed by his comments to Black. He swallowed. "Er, hey, Lily, what do they actually say when they, you know, when they tell Muggle-borns?"

She hadn't expected that one. She looked back at him, brows raised. "Well, a lot of things. I imagine it depends on who goes, and what the family is like." 

"Could you tell me sometime?"

She contemplated it for a half-moment. "Find me sometime in the common room when I'm not working. I might not be too busy later, if I get through all the Charms reading."

"It's a date!" Potter said, breaking out in a grin.

"No, Potter, it's helping Remus give you a sorely-needed lesson on understanding the vast majority of the human populace."

His grin disappeared and was replaced by a chastised look. "I guess I deserved that."

"Yeah," she said simply. "It might seem like a little prank to you, and if you charmed a bunch of wind-up jaws to chase that Mulciber git around the castle I'd cheer you on, but Remus was right. That could really scare someone who thought magic didn't exist. You'd---James, imagine if all of a sudden magic _stopped_ existing. You'd think you'd gone crazy. You couldn't trust anything about the world." 

"Wouldn't be fun," he mumbled. 

"No."

"'m sorry."

She patted his arm and smiled. "It's okay."


End file.
